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What is a Blog? – Complete Explanation of Blog in 2018

You will find out some basic things about a blog including the advantages of blogging, and everything that you need to know about blogging.

What is a ‘Blog’?

According to Wikipedia, a blog is a website which consists of informal text entries written in the style of diary known as “posts”. These posts are often shown in the blog in reverse order; i.e. the posts which are posted recently appears first and the older posts appear below the recent posts.

Simply put, a blog is a kind of website where you can write different posts and articles just as you post on social networking sites like Facebook and micro-blogging social sites like Twitter. Twitter, a micro-blogging site? Yeah, it is. A micro-blogging site is a site where you often write shorter posts which are known as “tweets” on Twitter. If you start a blog, you can publish any kinds of posts you want or just by focusing on a single niche.

Since you have known what exactly is a ‘blog’, now it’s time to find out the several reasons why you need to start a blog in 2018/19.

Why Start a Blog?

There are tons of reasons for why everyone needs to have their own blog in the recent time. Nowadays, probably more than 50% of the total population of the world is on the Internet and the majority of them usually search for something on Google. There’s a high chance that any one of them would get to find your blog while searching on Google. This will help you establish a proper mark of yourself on the Internet. So, now let’s get to the main point where I am going to tell you why you need to have your own blog.

1. Blogging is EASY

Yes, blogging is pretty easier than you think. You might be thinking of having to write codes, pay a huge amount of money, etc. But, you’re wrong. You don’t have to pay a huge amount of money, neither you have to write codes. You can start a blog in a free blogging platform or just pay some bucks to start a brand new professional blog. The era of writing codes for each post on your blog has gone. With the vast improvement in the field of web development, professional developers have made it possible to you by providing a blogging software that allows you to write blog posts and articles without having to code. To design your blog, there are tons of third-party designers and developers who are providing free blog templates for several blogging software on the Internet. You can just download the best theme you like and upload on your blog and customize it a little bit. And, there you have it. You would finally have your own blog.

2. Blogging improves your communication skills

If you start your own blog, you’d be writing your own posts and stuff there. Doing this, you’d also be improving your writing and communication skills while you keep going on writing for your blog. When you start a blog, you’d also start to think about who you actually are and what you can do. If you are running a good blog and are in search of a job, many job employers will be looking for you just because you are running a blog where you are writing about different kinds of stuff focusing on what kind of lifestyle you have and what kind of opinion you are providing in your blog articles. This will surely be a benefit for you and finally, help you become a better role model.

3. Blogging can get you known worldwide

I already told you above that the search engines like Google would be crawling over your blog articles and indexing them into their search database. Millions of people perform a Google search daily on different topics. Maybe one of them would search a perfect keyword that exactly matches your blog and he/she would find about you. This can easily help you get known to people worldwide. You will also start getting visitors to your blog from these searches. Probably you will be able to find a perfect business partner in the future when you have your own blog.

4. Blogging helps people

If you have your own blog, you can throw out information and knowledge through your blog posts. Your blog posts can even help other people solve their problems. Maybe some people would even be inspired by how you are living. Suppose you have a blog about “tech solutions”. There are thousands of people every day who are looking for different methods to solve different issues regarding their computers, phones or any electronic and mechanical devices. The opinions that you provide through your blog posts can be very helpful to these people.

If you have a blog in any other niche, you would be helping people in your own way. Who knows, you will one day start getting emails where people would be saying “Thanks for sharing such helpful information”. So, you should know that you’d be helping people while you writing posts on your blog.

5. Blogging can make you money

You might have heard about many people who are making quite a decent amount of money just by blogging. Yes, you can monetize your blog by placing advertisements or promoting some products and earn money. Making money through blogging might take some time, but once your blog starts getting enough visitors, you would automatically be starting to make money. At the beginning, your income through blogging could be low. But, once your blog gets a decent amount of traffic, your income would automatically start increasing.

There are several people who make thousands of dollars every year just by having a blog. You can consider looking at the blogs like Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Huffington Post, etc. They get thousands of unique visitors every day and make thousands and maybe even millions of dollars every year. Maybe you would be the one to make several thousands of dollars every month when you start getting a decent amount of visitors in your blog.

Now, you have found out about several reasons why you need to start your own blog. Does this mean you should start a blog?

Should you start a Blog?

So, should you really start a blog? Certainly, you should. But, you need to make sure that you are ready to start your own blog. Here’s what you need to know before getting started!

You need to be able to write articles. Any kind of articles would work. Your writing skills will automatically start growing once you keep on writing on your blog.

You need to be able to manage at least 30 minutes to an hour a day to focus on your blog.

You shouldn’t think about making money just by having a few numbers of posts. Once you do optimize your contents and once you have enough contents and once your blog starts getting a decent amount of visitors, you can monetize your blog and start making money.

You shouldn’t copy others’ articles. Google really hates people who copy others’ articles. If you are copying contents from others’ blogs, your blog won’t be able to appear higher in search results, neither will it be approved by advertising networks for monetization.

You need to be able to add titles, logos, etc. on your blog. It’s easy. You just need to replace the theme or template’s default title and logo with yours.

Once you are sure that you can do all these things, you are ready to jump into the main point of starting a blog.

Are you ready to start your own blog? Let’s get started!

WordPress.com VS WordPress.org

WordPress.com is a free blogging platform provided by the WordPress Foundation. It is just similar to Google’s blogging platform, Blogger. You have very limited features in WordPress.com and you won’t have the full rights over your content. Even the domain that you’d be having on your blog would be like this:

yourblogname.wordpress.com

If they want, they can remove your blog at any time from their servers. And, if they do so, you will lose all your contents and you won’t have any rights to take legal actions. But, WordPress.orgis a whole different scenario from WordPress.com. WordPress.org is an open source blogging platform that just needs to be uploaded and installed on your domain in your web hosting. You reserve full rights over your contents and WordPress won’t be able to remove any of your contents from your blog since you are using nothing else other than the WordPress blogging platform on your domain.

Where should I get my domain name and web hosting

When you are ready to get a web hosting service, you need to think about a couple of things. These are two things that define how your blog will perform.

The first one is Page Load Speed. This is the speed that your blog takes to load. It is usually the average amount of time your blog takes to load.

The next thing is Uptime. Most web hosting providers provide you just 99.9% uptime. But, it’s not enough. 99.9% uptime means 42 minutes of downtime every month. You need to have your blog up on the Internet forever.

There are thousands of different web hosting providers you can choose from. Most of these offer you a similar service for domain registration as well as web hosting at a similar rate. The only and only web hosting I recommend you to use is SiteGround (www.SiteGround.com). You can get a domain name along with web hosting through SiteGround.

The reason why SiteGround is the only hosting I recommend is that it has 100% uptime and it is based on HTTP/2 enabled servers which means the page load speed is certainly faster than most of the web hosting alternatives. You’ll also find out several other reasons why you need to prefer SiteGround when you complete a few days of your experience with SiteGround.

However, if you want to try another web hosting service, you are always free to take your decision. But, what you need to look for is that the web hosting is faster, reliable and offers you unlimited web storage and bandwidth. Having a hosting with unlimited storage and bandwidth helps you prevent any sorts of issues in the future.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Creating a Blog

1. What is a ‘BLOG’?

A blog is a kind of website where you post things you’d like people to know or learn about.

2. Which is the best blogging platform?

WordPress is by far the most popular blogging platform, which powers most of the blogs on the Internet. It’s also a free and open-source blogging platform.

3. Should I start a blog?

Yes, if you can manage your time, you shall start your own blog. You can write blog posts whenever you have a free time.

4. Why should I start a blog?

Having your own blog can help you improve conversational skills since blog articles are usually meant to be written in communicational form. Who knows your blog can be the next big thing. If it does, you can easily get hired by people in relevant fields of work.

5. What kind of blog should I start?

You can start any kind of blogs. In the recent time, blogs focusing on technological stuffs, health and fitness, recipes, sports, entertainment, etc. are getting a larger mass of audience. You may also start a news blog.

6. Can I make money blogging?

Yes, you can. Many bloggers are making money through their blogs either by running ads through different advertising networks or by promoting others’ products in their blogs. There are a lot of different ways you can make money through your blogs.

7. How shall I pick up a good domain name?

If you are a freelancer, it is highly recommended to look for a domain name having your name in it. In other cases, you can start a blog with any name, but you need to make sure that it doesn’t harm the trademarks of others.

8. Is it a MUST to use .com domain?

No, there are hundreds of different top-level domains you can choose from. The most used domains for blog sites are usually .com, .net, .tech, .blog, .site, .online, and .me. You can also use .org if you want to start a blog for an organization.

9. Can I use free web hosting?

Yes, you can use free web hosting. But, none of the free web hostings provide you with totally unlimited services. There are some web hosting providers that provide you unlimited storage and bandwidth, but they take your site down if your site gets a lot of visitors. Also, most of the free web hosting either run their banners in your site or prohibit you from monetizing your blog. They also reserve the right to shut down your blog at any time they want, which can cause you a huge loss. So, it is recommended to get a paid web hosting. It doesn’t cost you much and is much cheaper than you think.

10. Which web hosting service shall I prefer?

In my opinion, you shall use SiteGround as your web hosting service provider. You can get web hosting service from SiteGround just for $3.95 per month if you are new to blogging. When you start growing, larger web hosting plans on SiteGround won’t cost you more than $11.95 per month. The best-selling web hosting plan is the GrowBig plan which costs you just $5.95 per month and you can host any number of websites as well. I recommend you to start with the simple plan, StartUp or maybe even GrowBig. When your blog starts growing, you can prefer upgrading to GoGeek plan which costs you just $11.95 per month.

11. Are blogs on social media sites?

There are a lot of similarities between a blog and a social media site. In a blog, there are comments from different people as well as interactions between people and you in the comments. However, blogs can’t be considered as a social media site.

12. Tell me the actual difference between a blog, a website and a social media site.

A website is a page on the Internet that is created and kept as it is until it gets an update in its layout or design. Its contents rarely get updated. A blog is something that gets updated frequently. The contents of an active blog are updated on a daily or weekly basis with new articles. However, a blog is a type of website. In this sense, social media sites can also be considered as a blog since they get updated every minute. But, an actual blog can’t be considered as a social media site in terms of analytics. However, both the blog and social media site are the types of a website.

13. I have understood all the information provided above. Am I ready to start a good blog now?

If you have understood all the information provided in this article on how to start your own blog, you are ready to get started! You have finally completed the course on starting your own blog and now you are ready to set up your own blog and start adding contents in it.

If you have any queries over the content provided above, you can feel to write a comment below and I will respond to you as soon as possible.

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[…] If you’ve any queries about the services provided by these web hosting companies or if you are in dilemma over what to choose, you can write down in the comments below with proper details. I’d try to respond to you as soon as possible. Also, check our article on how to create a website and what is a blog. […]